Robert Ludlum - The Parcifal Mosaic.txt

by The Parcifal Mosaic [lit]

  Paris, after Col des Moulinets. A VKR officer from Barcelona who came after

  me. I was placed 'beyond sa1v4ge7 in Rome, not Paris."

  '.rhat was Ambiguity!s decision," said Berquist. "Not mine."

  "But for the same reason. Your words-sir.'

  "Yes." The President leaned forward. "It was the Costa Brava. That night on

  the Costa Brava."

  The frustration and the anger returned; it was all Michael could do to

  control himself. "The Costa Brava was a shaml A fraudl I was used, and for

  that you pinned the label on mel You knew about it. You said you were a

  part of id"

  "You saw a woman killed on that beach~"

  Havelock got up swiftly and gripped the back of the chair. "Is this another

  attempt to be funny-Mr. President?"

  "I don't remotely feel like being amusing. No one was to be killed that

  night on the Costa Brava."

  "No one ... Christl You did itl You and Bradford and those bastards in

  Langley I spoke with from Madridl Doet tell me about Costa Brava, I was

  therel And you were responsible, all of youl*

  ~We initiated it, we set it in motion, but we di(Wt finish it. And that,

  Mr. Havelock, is the truth."

  Michael wanted to rush to the screen and smash his hands against the

  terrible images. Instead, the words, jennds words, came back to him. Not

  one operation, but two. Then his own. Intercepted. Altered.

  'Wait a minute," he said.

  "Find another expression."

  "No, please. You started it, and without your knowing it the scenario was

  read, then taken over, the threads altered, going into another weave

  456 ROBERT LUDLUM

  n7bose phrases aren't in my lexicon.-

  ~Meyre very clear. You're making a rag and the birds in the pattern are

  swans; suddenly they tam into condors.-

  "I stand corrected. That's what happened."

  "Shitt Excuse me."

  "rm from Minnesota. rve shoveled more than yoxfve ever seen, most of it in

  Washington." Berquist leaned back in his chair. "Do you understand now?"

  "I thU so. It's the flaw that could trap him. Parsifal was at Costa Brava.'

  "Or his Soviet connection," amended the President. "When you saw the Karas

  woman three months later, you began probing that night. If you exposed it,

  you might have alarmed Parsifal. We don't know that you would have, but as

  long as the possibility existed, we couldn't risk the consequences.

  "Why didn7t anyone tell me? Why didiet anyone reach me and spell it out?"

  "You wouldet come in. The strategists at Consular Operations went to

  extreme lengths to bring you in. You eluded them"

  "Not because of"-Havelock gestured helplessly, angrily at the

  screen-"these. You could have told me, not tried to kill mel"

  'Ilere was no time, nor could we send couriers with any part of this

  information or with the slightest intimations as to Matthias's mental

  condition. We didnI know what yoed do at any given moment, what you might

  say about that night, or whom you might say it to. In our judgment-in my

  judgment-if the man we call Parsifal was at Costa Brava, or was part of the

  altered strategy, and he thought he was being identified with that night,

  he could well have been provoked into doing the unthinkable. We could not

  permit even the possibility of that."

  "So many questions . . ." Michael blinked in the harsh glare of light. "So

  much I can't fit together."

  "You may when and if the decision is made on both our parts to bring you 0

  the way in."

  ne Apache," said Havelock, avoiding Berquises comment, "the Palatine . .

  . Red Ogilvie. Was it an accident? Was that shot meant for me, or was it

  really meant for him

  THE PARSIFAL MOSAW 457

  because he knew about something back here. He mentioned a man who died of a

  heart attack on the Chesapeake."

  "Ogilvie's death was exactly what it appeared to be. A mistake. The bullet

  was meant for you. The others, however, were not accidents."

  "What others?"

  "The remaining three strategists at Consular Operations were murdered in

  Washington."

  Havelock stood motionless, absorbing the information in silence.

  . Because of me?" he asked finally.

  "Indirectly. But then, you7re at the core of everything because of the

  single, imponderable question: Why did Matthias do what he did to you?"

  "Tell me about the strategists, please."

  'Iley knew who Parsifars Soviet connection was," said the President. "Or

  they would have known the next night if you had been killed at Col des

  Moulinets:'

  "Code name Ambiguity. He's hereF'

  "Yes. Stem gave him the clearance code. We know where he is, not who he

  is~"

  "Where?"

  You may or may not be given that information."

  'For Gods sakel With all due respect, Mr. President, hasn1 it occurred to

  you even now to use me? Not kill me, but use mel"

  "Why should I? Could you help me? Help us?"

  Vve spent sixteen years in the field, hunting and being hunted. I speak

  five languages fluently, three marginally, and more dialects than I can

  count. I know one side of Anthony Matthias better than anyone else alive;

  I know his feelings. More to the immediate point, I've uncovered as many

  double entries-agents-as any other man in Europe. Yes, I think I can help."

  "Then you must give me your answer. Do you intend to carry out your threat?

  These thirteen pages that could-2'

  Bum them,- interrupted Havelock; he was watching the President's eyes,

  believing him.

  "They're carbons," said Berquist.

  "rll reach her. Shids a couple of miles away in Savannah:'

  "Very well. Code name Ambiguity is on the fifth floor of

  458 RoBLrRT LuDLum

  the State Department. One of sixty-five, maybe seventy men and women. The

  word, I believe, is 'mole."' ,

  "YoiiNe narrowed it down that far?" asked Michael, sittmg down.

  "Emory Bradford did. He's a better man than you think. He never wanted to

  harm the Karas woman."

  "Then he was incompetent."

  "He'd be the first to agree with that. Still, if she'd followed his

  instructions, sVd eventually have been told the truth-, the two of you

  would have been bmught in."

  "Instead, I was putbeyond salvage.'"

  'Tell me something, Mr. Havelock" said the President, once again leaning

  forward in the chair. "If you were I, knowing what you know now, what would

  you have done?"

  Michael looked at the screen, the astonishing words burning into his mind.

  -The same thing you did. I was expendable."

  '01hank Yom" The President rose. "Incidentally, no one here on Poole!s

  Island knows anything about these. Neither the doctors, nor the

  technicians, nor the military. Only five other men are aware of them. Or of

  Parsifal. One of them is a psychiatrist from Bethesda, a specialist in

  hallucinatory disorders, who ffies down once a week to work with Matthias

  only in this room."

  "I understand."

  "Now, lees get out of here while we!re still, sane," said Berquist as he

  walked to the projector; he snapped it off, then turned on the overhead

  lights. "Arrange
ments will be made to fly the two of you to Andrews Air

  Force Base this afternoon. Well find you a place somewhere in the -country,

  not in Washington. We can1 risk your being seen."

  "If Im going to be effective, I'll. have to have access to records, logs,

  files. They can't be moved to the country, Mr. President."

  "If they can7t be, well bring you in under very controlled chvmnstances. .

  . . ThereT be two more chain placed at the table. You'll be given clearance

  for everything under another name. And Bradford will brief you as soon as

  possible."

  Before I leave here, I want to talk to the doctors. I'd also like to see

  Anton, but I understand; iell be brief, only a few minutes."

  "rm not sure theyll permit ie

  THE PARsxFAL MosAic459

  'Men oven-ale them. I want to talk to him in Czech, his own language. rve

  got to dig around something he said to me. He said, 'You doiA understand.

  You can never understand.' les deep inside of him, something between

  himself and me. Maybe rm the only one who can get it out. It could be

  everything, why he did what he did, not only to me but to himself.

  Somewhere in my head there~s a bomb, rve fmown it from the beginning.-

  I "The doctors are overruled. But I remind you, you spent twelve days at a

  clinic, a total of eighty-five hours in chemical therapy, and you couldrA

  help us."

  "You didnI know where to look. God help me, neither do V

  The three doctors were not able to tell him anything he could not have

  guessed from Berquist's descriptions, and in fact, the psychiatric

  terminology tended to obscure the picture for him. The Presidenes

  characterization of a delicate, remarkable instrument exploding under the

  inhuman pressures of responsibilities was far more graphic than the dry

  explanation of the limits of stress tolerance. Then one of the analysts

  interrupted-the youngest, as it happened: "There is no reality for him in

  the accepted sense of the word. He filters his impressions, permitting only

  those that support what he wants to see and hear. These are his reality-more

  real to him, perhaps, than anything was before-because they're his fantasies

  and they've got to protect him now. He has nothing else, only fragmented

  memories."

  Not only was President Charles Berquist adept at description, thought

  Michael, but he also listened.

  "The deterioration can't be reversed?' asked Havelock.

  "No," said another psychiatrist. "The cellular structure has degenerated.

  It's irreversible."

  "He's too old," said the younger man.

  "I want to see him. rU be brief."

  'We've registered our objections," said the third doctor, 'but the

  President feels differently. Please understand, we're working here under

  virtually impossible conditions, with a patient who's failing-how rapidly

  Ws difficult to tell. He has to be both artificially repressed and

  stimulated in order for us to achieve any results at all. It's extremely

  delicate, and a

  460 RoBF:aT LuDLum

  prolonged trauma could set us back days. We haven7t the time, Mr. Havelock."

  "I'll be quick. Ten minutes."

  "Make it five. Please."

  All right. Five minutes."

  "I'll take you over," said the younger psychiatrist. -He!s where you saw

  him last night. In his garden."

  Outside on the street, the white-jacketed doctor directed Michael to an

  army jeep behind the red-brick building. "You were getting pissed off in

  there," he said. "You shouldn't have. Theyre two of the best men in the

  country and nobody was exaggerating. Sometimes this place seems like Fu-

  tilityville."

  "Futility what?"

  'Ile results don7t come fast enough. Well never catch UP. .

  "With what?"

  "With what he's done."

  "I see. You can~t be too much of a slouch yourself," said Havelock, as they

  drove down the tree-lined street toward the dirt road that approached

  Matthias's mocked-up house.

  "rve written a couple of papers, and rm good with stats, but rm happy to be

  a go-fer for these guys."

  "Where'd they find you?"

  "I worked with Dr. Schramm at Menninger~s-hes the one who insisted on the

  five minutes, and the finest neuropsychiatrist in the business. I operated

  machines for hiin-brain scanners, electrospectographs, that sort of thing.

  I still do."

  "There's a lot of machinery around here, isnI there?"

  "No expense spared."

  "I can!t get over it," exclaimed Michael, glancing around at the receding

  scenery, at the macabre facades and the alabaster models, the miniature

  streets and streetlamps and odd-shaped blowups placed on manicured lawns.

  "Ies incredible. It's something out of a movie-a weird movie. Who the hell

  built it, and how were they convinced not to say anything? The rumors must

  be flying all over south Georgia."

  "Not because of them-the people who built it, I mean."

  "How could you stop them?"

  "They're nowhere near here. Theyre hundreds of miles away working on a

  half-down other projects."

  "Whatr

  THE PATWFAL MOSAIC461

  'You just said it," explained the young doctor, grinning. "A movie. This

  whole complex was built by a Canadian film company that thinks it was hired

  by a cost-conscious producer on the West Coast. They started the scenic

  construotion twenty-four hours after the Corps of Engineers threw up the

  stockade and converted the existing buildings for our use.

  K 'What about the helicopters that fly in from Savannah?"

  . "They're routed on a path and into a threshold beyond the stockade; they

  caet see anything. And anyway, except for the President and one or two

  others, they're all from Quartermaster, bringing in supplies. They've been

  told ifs an oceanic research center and have no reason to think otherwise."

  'Vbat about the personnel?"

  "We doctors, the technicians who can handle just about everything, a few

  aides, the guards, and a platoon of enlisted men and five officers. The

  last is all army, even the ones who man the patrol boat."

  "What have they been told?"

  "As little as possible. Outside of us, the technicians and the aides know

  more than anyone else, but they were screened as if they were being sent to

  Moscow. Also the guards, but I guess you know that. I gather yoere

  acquainted.-

  'With one, anyway." The jeep entered the rutted dirt road, the island dust

  billowing behind them. . I caet figure the army. How do they keep it

  quiet?'

  "To begin with, they doet go anywhere. None of us do, that's the official

  word. And even if they did, they wouldnI worry about the officers. They're

  all from the Pentagon Rolodex and each one sees himself as a future

  chairman of the joint Chiefs. They woul(Wt say anything; ies their

  guarantee of quick rank."

  "And the enlisted men? They've got to be a boiling pot."

  "That's stereotypical thinking, iset it? Young guys like that took a lot of

  beaches once, fought in a lot of jungles."

  "I only meant theres got to be gossip, wild tales all over the place. How

  are they contained?"
/>
  "For starters, they don't see that much, not of anything that counts.

  They're told Pooles Island is a simulated exercise in survival, everything

  top secret~ ten years in a stockade

  462 RoBzRT LuDLum

  if the secrecy's broken. They're also screened, all regular army; they've

  got a home here. Why louse it up?"

  "It still sounds loose.*

  "Well, there's always the bottom line. I mean, before too long it's not

  going to make a hell of a lot of difference, is it?"

  Havelock whipped his head around and stared at the psychiatrist.

  Incidentally, no one here on Fooles Island knotm anything about these.

  Neither the doctors, the techniciant ... Berquist's words. Had that vault,

  that very odd room, been entered? "What do you mean?*

  "One of these days Matthias will quietly slip away. When he's gone, the

  rumors won1 make any difference. All great men and women have postmortem

  stories told about them; Xs part of the ballgame."

  It there is a ballgame, Doctor.

  "DoW odpoledne, pfiteli," said Michael softly, as he walked out of the house

  into the sun-drenched garden. Matthias was sitting in the same chair at the

  end of the winding slate path where he had been seated the night before,

  protected from the sun by the shade of a traveler's palm that fanned out in

  front of the wall. Havelock continued speaking, quickly and gently, in

  Czech. "I know yoifre upset with me, my dear friend, and I wish only to put

  to rest the difficulty between us. After all, you are my beloved teacher,

  the only father I have left, and it isn!t right for fathers and sons to be

  estranged."

  At first Matthias recoiled in the chair, pulling himself farther into the

  shadows of the palm, the intermittent streaks of light crossing his

  frightened, contorted face. But a mist began to cover the wide eyes behind

  the tortoiseshell glasses, a film of uncertainty; perhaps he was

  remembering words from long ago-a father's words in Prague, or a chfld7s

  plea. It did not matter. The language, the soft, deliberate cadence-they

  were having their effect. It was crucial now to touch. The touch was vital,

  a symbol of so much that was of another language, of another country-of

  remembered trust. Michael approached, the words flowing softly, the cadence

  rhythmic, evoking another time, another land.